Searches for a heavy scalar boson H decaying to a pair of 125 GeV Higgs bosons hh or for a heavy pseudoscalar boson A decaying to Zh, in the final states with h to tau tau

TL;DR

This paper reports on searches for heavy scalar and pseudoscalar bosons decaying into Higgs pairs or ZH, using CMS data, setting upper limits on their production without observing significant excesses.

Contribution

First search for heavy H and A bosons decaying into Higgs pairs or ZH in specific final states using CMS data at 8 TeV.

Findings

No significant excess observed over the Standard Model expectations.

Upper limits set on production cross sections for H and A bosons in specified mass ranges.

Results interpreted within two-Higgs-doublet models.

Abstract

A search for a heavy scalar boson H decaying into a pair of lighter standard-model-like 125 GeV Higgs bosons h and a search for a heavy pseudoscalar boson A decaying into a Z and an h boson are presented. The searches are performed on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns of pp collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, collected by CMS in 2012. A final state consisting of two tau leptons and two b jets is used to search for the H to hh decay. A final state consisting of two tau leptons from the h boson decay, and two additional leptons from the Z boson decay, is used to search for the decay A to Zh. The results are interpreted in the context of the two-Higgs-doublet models. No excess is found above the standard model expectation and upper limits are set on the heavy boson production cross sections in the mass ranges 260 < m[H] < 350 GeV and 220 < m[A] < 350 GeV.